Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor

The latest fortnightly Newspoll results, related through Twitter by Stephen Murray, have the Labor two-party lead down from 54-46 to 53-47, from primary votes of 37% for the Coalition (up one), 36% for Labor (down one), 10% for the Greens (down two) and 17% for others (up two). Bill Shorten maintains a lead as preferred prime minister but it has narrowed considerably after a post-budget blowout, down from 45-35 last time to 40-37. Personal ratings for both leaders are down, with Abbott off three points on approval to 30% and up two on disapproval to 61%, while Shorten is down four to 34% and up two to 45%. UPDATE: Full tables from The Australian.

Today also brought a new set of results from Morgan’s multi-mode series, with separate numbers provided for each of the last two weekends’ polling rather than the combined fortnightly result that has been the recent norm. This decision was evidently made to emphasise a disparity between the two, with the earlier result being considerably the worse for the Coalition. For the weekend of June 7/8, Labor’s primary vote lead blew out to 42% (up four on the previous fortnightly poll to 33% (down two points), with the Greens up one to 12% and Palmer United down three to 4.5%. This panned out to huge Labor leads of 60.5-39.5 on respondent-allocated preferences and 59-41 on 2013 election preference flows. For the weekend just past, Labor’s primary vote lead was down to 38% to 36.5%, with the Greens steady on 12% and Palmer United up a point to 5.5%. On two-party preferred, Labor’s leads were 55.5-44.5 on respondent-allocated preferences and 54.5-45.5 on previous election.

Morgan also conducted a phone poll of 637 respondents from Tuesday to Thursday last week which showed an effective disappearance for the net majority in support of repeal of the carbon tax, for which support was down two points since the previous such poll in February to 47%, and opposition up five to 46%. The poll also found 88% believing Australia should reduce carbon dioxide emissions versus only 10% opposed, while a question on global warming had 29% nominating that concerns were exaggerated, 49% selecting “if we don’t act now it will be too late”, and 16% opting for “it is already too late”.

UPDATE (Essential Research): The latest fortnightly rolling average from Essential Research has Labor’s two-party lead steady at 54-46, from primary votes of 41% for Labor (up one), 39% for the Coalition (up two), 9% for the Greens (steady) and 5% for Palmer United (down one). Also featured are semi-regular questions on international relations, climate change and same-sex marriage. The “very important” rating for a close relationship with New Zealand is for some reason up seven points since November to 61%, and that for China is for some reason down eight points to 46%; trust in the Abbott government to handle international relations is down six points to 35%, and distrust is up six to 59%; and 45% are confident that Tony Abbott will do a good job representing Australia overseas versus 50% not confident, which contrasts with the 74% and 18% recorded for Kevin Rudd in October 2009. Belief that climate change is related to human activity is at 53%, down three on the April result, while non-belief is at 35%, up one; and in a result closely reflecting Morgan’s, 38% agree with Tony Abbott’s assertion that Australia and Canada should “take the lead” in opposing carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes versus 39% who disagree. Support for same-sex marriage maintains an upward trajectory evident since the series began in late 2010, with 60% in favour (up three on October last year) and 28% opposed (down three).

Labor and Greens need to learn humour – its one of the best ways to be popular in Australia. Shorten is trying hard to attack Budget. Milne seems very serious about issues. But making a joke of Abbott and Hockey will resonate better with the public.

Labor and Greens need to learn humour – its one of the best ways to be popular in Australia. Shorten is trying hard to attack Budget. Milne seems very serious about issues. But making a joke of Abbott and Hockey will resonate better with the public.

Absolutely true.

Whitlam destroyed McMahon with humour and ridicule.

Tone and his gang provide such comedic material. The cartoonists are onto it already and it needs to be spread around everywhere.

If the budget was actually an aggressive attempt at bringing spending under control then yes a six point deficit might be an okay position to be but due to the weak effort the government will need to keep the foot down for longer hence its difficult to see a six point deficit as a positive.

$40-billion missile defense system proves unreliable
David Willman
JUNE 15

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The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD, was supposed to protect Americans against a chilling new threat from "rogue states" such as North Korea and Iran. But a decade after it was declared operational, and after $40 billion in spending, the missile shield cannot be relied on, even in carefully scripted tests that are much less challenging than an actual attack would be, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found.

As I noted last Friday, the media's coverage of Tony Abbott's meeting with Barack Obama made it seem a pretty anodyne affair, but there are a couple of reasons to think there might be slightly more to it than that. Both reasons will be encouraging to those who favour an ever tighter Australian embrace of the US alliance, but worrying to those of us who think we ought to have a little more breathing room and the occasional show of independence.

Abbott absorbing all the pain and getting dumped before the election for Lord Voldemort is perfectly fine with me……not that I am predicting that, but I have no problems with Abbott’s net sat.

If voters can hardly decide whether or not Shorten would be better than Abbott, I wouldn’t get too cocky about this poll!

The main difference between Abbott and Shorten on Netsat is Shorten has more “unsures” because people don’t know who he is. Given all his negativity, its likely they will skew the same as those who do know him.

1. People know which parties are blocking what in terms of the budget.
2. Both leaders are disliked.
3. Labor after coming back from a major loss, and Coalition Party, from a major seat majority, now has to rely on more Independents to get things done.

Lenore Taylor is on ABC local radio. She is saying a DD may happen despite the polls. She thinks Abbott may be forced to a DD because most of the budget will be blocked making him look weak and ineffectual.

we can be thankful it doesn’t crow about an ‘abbott resurgence’ and greens-labor ‘collapse’ in primary vote. no doubt sheridan is writing that piece right now. I expect much print to follow re: “voters not falling for labor’s negative rhetoric and return the libs or conservative independents”. It is a worry labor is not more in the lead – but abbott left the country and drew attention away from the budget. Labor is not hammering the ‘you can not trust a work abbott or hockey says’ meme that I think they should be trying to entrench with voters – it doesn’t help that shorten sounds so rehearsed – it’s a hard job and he’s doing OK, but does he look prime-ministerial or more like a balding kid pretending?

Lenore Taylor is on ABC local radio. She is saying a DD may happen despite the polls. She thinks Abbott may be forced to a DD because most of the budget will be blocked making him look weak and ineffectual.

Hahaha … that will make it a referendum on his budget and he will be smashed.

My aggregate is at 53.9 to Labor at present. It would have finished last week at 53.8 but back-including the rogue Morgan drives last week’s final reading up to 54.9. I’ve had to make some changes to deal with Morgan releasing weekly samples (don’t know if they intend to do this often). Also the rogue has caused my estimate of Morgan’s house effect to increase to 1.5% (and that’s for last-election preferences, respondent-allocated would be higher.)

As poroti suggests, the Ground Crew had no end of fun with Robert about the new Mustang.

The A/C were owned by them, so a pilot taking one out, getting hit by some ‘flack’ in Nth Italy and then indulging in two power dives chasing German M-110′s and then dipping the new Mustang in a lake after it developed some ‘wriggles’ (i.e. the wings were about to come off) was not a concept that appealed to the Air-frame guys.

Tony Abbott has warned that Iraq could become a terrorist state, as Australia continues talks with the US on how to handle escalating tensions in the country.

Asked about the violence in Iraq’s north, the prime minister told parliament there was already a humanitarian and security crisis in Iraq as the insurgent group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) took control of parts of the north and central Iraq over three days.

We know it’s really going gangbusters coz Psephos told us it was, and they held those successful elections a couple of weeks back and that means it must be going well.

TONY Abbott and Bill Shorten are more unpopular today than they were before the budget as voter support for independents and micro-parties has climbed to a record high.

The latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Aus­tralian, also reveals the immediate post-budget surge in support for the Opposition Leader has not been sustained.

But the government continues to suffer from the poor response to its first budget. Despite a tiny improvement, it significantly trails Labor in two-party terms by 47 per cent to 53 per cent — almost the reverse of the election result nine months ago.

Electorate casts a pox on both houses
PHILLIP HUDSON, COMMENT The Australian
June 17, 2014 12:00AM

Immediately after the worst-received budget in 20 years voters marked down Tony Abbott and delivered a surge in support for Bill Shorten. But a month on, voters don’t appear to like what the Labor leader is saying either. Shorten’s record high satisfaction is now a record high dissatisfaction. His shock 10-point lead as better PM is almost gone.

The Opposition Leader has ­relentlessly blasted the unfair budget but has offered no alternative. Voters have seen only a public slanging match about fairness and deficits and don’t appear to endorse any of the participants.

labor should be highwater mark of popularity – shorten is no campaigner no public speaker and no intellectual. indeed what exactly is he doing there. now we have two party leaders out of their depth. just great